We all know about the on going war between Zillow and NewsCorp/Move/Realtor.com right? Well it appears it’s come down to NAR banning Zillow from any future NAR events. Our question is, should they do this? What are your thoughts on it?
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Question Authority!
It's basically pride and greed with no thought as to the outcomes for the overall downside of it all with regard to members who pay them.
Admission to events should be based on how a company treats the REALTORS, not eachother.
The CFPB partnered with Zillow, not NAR. Realtors we don't own realtor.com, they present like we do, we don't.
NAR sold us out! If listings are owned by the Broker, why are they furnished to Zillow and then sold back to the Broker/Agent?
I just had an interesting discussion with a Realtor friend of mine. We discussed the duties of a realtor and the "Zillow" influence on the market. Did you know that the public has no access to MLS but when Realtors post on MLS, your listing automatically goes on Zillow. We then talked about other things that Realtors "do" after the listing – let's just say that it was interesting information. I say if Zillow helps to market your home – then they should be a part of anything to do with real estate!
It's my birthday and I'm here in Vegas for the Mastermind Summit! I've been following you all for about 10 years! I hope to run into you!!
Actually, I think NAR is making a great decision. It is about time that they put their foot down. Zillow, Trulia, ect. takes our inventory, markets it, and sells it back to us. How can anyone else not have an issue with this?
Sorry, guys, but this is one of the lamest rants I’ve heard from you. REALTORS own their listings, so why should ANYONE have access to them if that firm sells us back leads to what we already own?? It’s like the mob charging “protection money!” NAR IS protecting it’s primary members – REALTORS – by making it more difficult for abusive third parties to extort money from the rightful owners. In my opinion, all we need is r.com to promote our listings to the public via the Internet. All the rest are bottom=feeders trying to scam us.
ABSOLUTELY, BAN ZILLOW ALL THE WAY, CAN'T TOLERATE IT
Doesn't anyone think about the fact the court said that Z stole, destroyed proprietary data from Realtor.com? I'm sure that has a lot to do with it since they've been proven guilty of corporate espionage of sorts. You don't think that Z had/does have plans to use that to their advantage? That's pretty niave.
Your out of touch on this one, No to Zillow! Zillow practice and post information to the cunsumer /public …
That would cost an agent their license, fine and jail time.
The war between the websites should on be a concern to the NAR. Zillow works very hard to be innovative in providing tools to get realtors noticed. I like that my Web presence is immediate for new listings with no extra steps. The other sites get them too, but are not really serving Realtors in a way that keeps it cutting edge. I don't have time for all the Web knowledge I would need… I am grateful a company like Zillow continues to push the envelope to make things easier for our profession. If realtor.com is allowed, so should Zillow be allowed…
I believe that Zillow not only should be banned, but forced out of business. They give out inaccurate information, and then when the public gets upset about it, it is focused on Realtors.. I never allow my listings to be put on Zillow, ( yes we do get to control that) and yet, I get my listings sold for top dollar, in a very short period of time. Zillow is NOT good for the consumer. The consumer has just been told they are.
My thoughts? Zillow BAD. NAR Almost as BAD. Who loses? Realtors.
You want to know who the evil entity is in this mess? BROKERS. Brokers CONTROL the listings – they flip a switch to send or not send their listings to whoever. What do BROKERS want? SALES. Do they care how they get those sales? NO. The dynamics of real estate have shifted and few loan officers would ever understand this but 25 years ago NO agents got 90% of the commission and there were very few RE/MAX 100% offices, pretty much the only company with that business model. FF for a few years, the shift begins, Keller Williams, Redfin, Zip and other so called desk fee companies – now the companies with this model care about only one thing: their desk or transaction fee – they have shifted the burden of expenses to the agents and have only a small overhead vs those heady days of $1000 page Real Estate Book ads paid by the broker – those are gone. Now the agent pays pretty much every dime of their expenses and in exchange they get close to or 100% of the transaction. So NOW the broker could care less how their agent gets their deal, just make sure I get my transaction or desk fee.
Think about this… brokers business models have shifted and they recruit agents – the more the better – NOT inventory. So Z has almost no impact on them and they have little or no vested interest in seeing them go. NAR could care less, that is until it started to impact THEIR cash cow – realtor.com.
It's those of us in the trenches that are digging every day that have the issue with the Z business model – being the biggest or the greatest web site portal with the most traffic only says they advertise more and they use other people's intellectual property as the attractant, with approval of the BROKERS – who, as I said, could care less – flip that switch! I just want my desk fee or tiny piece of each deal. If the costs of being on Z were born by the brokers, you can bet there would be NO Z – it would not exist.
So what is the problem here? Brokers – not Z. They just saw a void and filled it, I can't blame them for that, althought I do not care for their business mode, Zestimates that miss the mark sometimes by 25% or more or the inaccurate data on their site – BUT that void was caused by NAR and Brokers – NAR because they failed to recognize the potential for Realtor.com and outsourced it (selling our SOUL to outsiders) to set up a revenue stream and that, in hindsight, was extremely shortsighted. Brokers, because they ARE NAR.
Bottom line: if you don't like Z, blame your broker – who, by the way, IS NAR – runs NAR, sits on the Board of Directors at NAR – and controls NAR. Your broker is the reason for this mess. Not Z. They are just opportunists, running wild – because they CAN.
If the majority of Realtors were really knowledgeable about Rupert Murdoch and his business practices or perhaps his extreme political agendas I don't know that this would have gotten this far. His move to purchase Move Inc was a bid to get a seat on the board of NAR and a lobbying position in DC, while at the same time establishing a huge advertising platform (Realtor.com) for his huge international media empire (Fox, WSJ, Barron to name a few in the US). This guy and his family are dangerous people (google 'Murdock UK phone hacking'). What we are seeing NAR do now is the historically classic strong arming behavior of a plutocrat tycoon bully, at the expense of the NAR membership.
Is Zillow trying to help all Realtors of just the one's that pay them?
Does Zillow follow the same rules and regulations your local MLS follow or demands—NO!
When do you think Zillow will start their own real estate companies in every major city–or did I miss that and they already have that in place?
We are not banning Zillow from NAR we should make them conform to our rules and regulations we Realtors must already follow before they are allowed any membership, advertising, entry to events or inforation we as Realtors work so hard to attain and manage.
I think that Zillow will be the national MLS in a few years. The local MLS will be gone.
I think NAR has their heads where the sun can't shine. Everyone is mad at Zillion when it is Redfin that is taking our listings for 1.5% commission. Zillow is all about paying for placement.Redfin wants our listings. Wake up everyone we need to cut Redfin's throat before it is too late.
Z!ll0w has one purpose and that is to disrupt the NAR PERIOD!
For those that have been in the real estate industry more than 10 years know that we the NAR and it’s members have fought the banks from entering the brokerage business every year.
There was a lawsuit that was settled… the banks seemed to have appeared.
When there is approximately $50,000,000,000 that’s BILLION nine zeroes annually.
When there is that much money at stake, the wall street banks are not going away EVER!
Do I think the banks started z!ll0w? No!
But make no mistake they are supported by the banks. Remember banks and wall street are synonymous.
For those that are new to this planet, there are a lot shady people and criminals to the degree that the world has never known on Wall St
par·a·site ˈperəˌsīt
noun
plural noun parasites
an organism that lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host’s expense.
a person who habitually relies on or exploits others and gives nothing in return.
hanger-on cadger leech passenger bloodsucker sponger bottom feeder scrounger freeloader mooch
This had me on Zillow stealing. First they have been stealing for a long time. Second they are irresponsible in their valuations (which they shouldn’t even be doing). Third their site is very poor at updating and refreshing information. So, they haven’t been playing nice in the sandbox but you still think they should be allowed on the playground? Not. It’s high time NAR and the Realtors stand up to Zillow. I used to have to intervene with my customers but now I am hearing negative things about Zillow from my customers!
It is critically important for NAR to ban them! Enough is enough! Zillow is making a fortune on our agents when we already pay MLS fees.
Fantastic! Zillow is merely an intermingler who charges us to communicate with the clients we had before they existed. Agents paying Zillow, Tulia or realtor.com must understand that they ultimately paying for them to build a wall between us and our clients.
My clients want to be on both and are convinced if their property is not, I am not doing my job.
I bust my ass to get listings. Zillow AND Move should pay me for the use of my listings. There is no other industry that has a zero cost of goods sold. These platforms take (steal?) my hard work and sell it back to me for ever increasing amounts. Make me a partner and stop picking my pocket and selling my leads to my competitors.
You attribute too much power to the brokers. NAR is completely unresponsive to brokers. They lobby for things that go against our interest. They keep trying to nationalize our small companies at every turn. You are correct that Zillow is getting their data from the agents in the trenches. They should be paying the listing agent for the data instead of charging us advertising. Realtor.com Trulia, and Zillow have made billions by getting listing info for free. That is what needs to be stopped. NAR and even local associations are being run by professionals more interested in their own carreers than the purpose of their association. Brokers are held clueless and helpless against the organizations the claim they represent us. Along comes Murdoch and Buffett both taking controls of the associations and brokerage companies and they will have every realtor in this country getting paid like bank tellers.
I am not a fan of Realtor.com. They want thousands of dollars upfront for allowing 25 photos to post to their site and for you promote yourself, if you don't pay you only get 4 photos on their site and your picture/name promotion is no where to be found. Well I paid the $$$ last year then they removed the personal promotion. My renewal is up in July – not paying $$$$ when I can't even promote myself. Personal promotion is FREE on Zillow and Trulia and I don't have to pay a $$$$ upfront to get my listings out there. Realtor.com is a dinosaur, they just want Realtor's money and does nothing for realtors in return.
A Zillow sales rep lied to me about Zillow, to get me to advertize with them. Then when I wanted to quit after the "Trial Period", they said there was no such thing as a "Trial Period", and I couldn't get a partial refund (as promised). Zillow, I spit on them.
I think this move has something to do with Zillow's attitude towards being Compliant with Marketing/Advertising. Basically Zillow throws the middle finger in the air when it comes to this issue. Let's be very honest here: There are many companies who have told their LO's they cannot participate in Marketing/Advertising with Zillow because of the lack of compliance. This news has started to resonate with the Realtors. Zillow acts like the Clintons and believes they are above the law. There are rumors out there that Zillow is being investigated by the FBI right now. Speculation is coming from Realtors who are "receiving calls" from the FBI and being questioned about the Marketing/Advertising procedures. NAR isn't just going to hap-hazardly make a decision to boycott these guys. There has to be a significant reason of why to distance themselves from that company.
From a personal experience: I hear many bad things coming from Realtors in regards to Zillow and many good things regarding the others like Realtor.com. I have never heard one good compliment from a Realtor in regards to Zillow. A few years back I would hear some good things, but not in the last 1-2 years. I Co-Branded Marketing/Advertising with an Agent on Zillow for nearly a year with Zero success. Not even a viable lead, let alone a deal that closed. When I do speak to a Realtor as to why they don’t like Zillow, most say that it has become so expensive that they no longer can afford it.
Guys, if you read the comments you will see that agents do not like zillow because of several reasons. They casue us a lot of issues with inbaacurate information not to mention they sell us back leads from our own listings. I agree with a lot of these agents and I hope NAR/Move puts them out of business.
Hey guys you have no Idea what your talking about when it comes to how some realtors feel about Zillow….Zillow is a big problem…NAR is right on. We don't need a 1000 real estate home sites. It's internet overload. ( 1 ) Zillow's Zestimates are mostly wrong. ( 2 ) and then Realtors have to "constantly" try to explain what the true value of their property really is. ( 3 ) That makes more work for us and ( 4 ) our customers become suspicious. It's a real pain. ( 5 )Then they post listings that are not listed. ( 6 ) They post potential foreclosures that have not been taken back by the lender.
( 7 ) Then we have to explain why they can't see it. The Buyer says…"Well if it's on zillow why can't we see it. They post these non-listings where the owners have been given notice that they are behind in their payments….The buyer says, "well go knock on the door maybe they will have to sell. " ( 8 ) ( I don't want to get shot.)
( 9 ) Zillow increases their numbers by posting these non-listings.
( 10 ) If you got sick or lost your job and got behind in your payments and found out your home was posted on Zillow and it caused someone to show up at your door, that couldn't turn out good. If I was losing my home I think I might be a bit crazed, so look out if someone showed up at my door. ( 11 ) It's a scam and all about the rating and money. (12 ) Also, they publish FSBO's. As a Realtor I don't care to support that. Again increasing their numbers.
( 13 ) Zillow sells agents/brokers buyer leads that a listing agent/broker owns to other agents /brokers for a price. The larger the price the more leads of other agents you can get. ( 14 )How do they get away with that. If you pay you can play. Totally wrong and possibly illegal.
I don't want my buyer leads sold to another agent and zillow profits from it. They should be sued!!!!!
You are RIGHT, who works for who here? I'm forwarding this to CEO Rascoff, next! Your presentation is a hoot (as in Hootsuite, pardon the pun)!
Zillow is the king daddy of thievery. Dishonest zestimates, disservice to the industry and a bully with NO real estate License.
They should be banned from all real estate period. No one should ever have to deal with incompetence and lack of professional standards
Yes. Zillow specializes in getting information wrong.
Wow! Thank you for shining a light on this. I would have no idea about the inside-baseball here. Great presentation.
I completely agree with NAR. Why would you let the fox into the henhouse? Start giving the listing agents the leads and or a fee to use their listing and watch things turn around.
It is excruciating to watch Zillow publicly provide eroneous information with REALTORS names attached. We look ignorant and unprofessional. NAR should do all they can legally to resist the proliferation of Zillow's misinformation. Agents who are allowing their names to be associated with incorrect information provided by Zillow, should be warned about their violation of our code of ethics and then we (local, state and NAR) should take action against such agents. The agents who have chosen to associate themselves with Zillow have the responsibility of correcting misinformation and to not do so is a violation of our code.
However, many agent's listings are posed without their personal consent due to their broker's decisoin or that of their franchise. Since it is impractical to try to get all the REALTORS to demand that Zillow get the information right and timely, NAR should do what they can to force Zillow's hand to improve their accuracy, timely make status changes and print large disclaimers that their Zestimates usually will be off the true value and consumers should not take the provided information as fact, but consult with their professional REALTOR.
John D. Shook John, when I say brokers I mean collectively – the MLS's point to the broker as the authority they have to give that listing data to Z – broker says turn it off, Z gets nothing. But broker/owners would catch heck from their clients if they could not find their homes on Z so the vicious cycle continues, in circles – I've give them this, they manipulated this brilliantly – I do fault NAR for much of this but the reality is NAR is controlled by the membership/broker owners. I read today that the agreement with Move and now News Corp has no termination, it's in pertuality FOREVER. WHAT???? Makes me wonder if the architects of this sweet agreement have any vested interest in it.
I think we were ALL asleep at the wheel and while we were napping our entire industry was highjacked. BUT IT IS NOT TOO LATE – flip that switch, take away those listings – and there would be no Z, or it would go back to being a valuation company, doing highly inaccurate Zestimates, borderline practicing appraising.
Amazing how we have been sold down the river – by our very leaders.
I do not agree with you. They should be ban
Yes!!!
Maybe a great technical marketing system, but so inaccurate that it's very often useless information just delivered in a pretty neat little package. But still JUNK!
Brian, i went to CRS Sellabration in February, and Zillow was there, and i went to their specialty classes, and candidly, they were schmucks! They cut off agents who had questions during the Q&A portion after the main discussion, and candidly, were rude to agents who had legitimate questions. The fact that NAR believes it is okay to TAKE my photos, my text, my information and insight, give it for free to any vendors, who then charge ME to control it or to correct it or to modify it… is simply screwed up! As much as i want my seller's to have the additional exposure, i lothe the fact that i do all the leg work, and if i want access to the right to MY INFORMATION, makes my blood boil. It is about the money, but then, why am i not being paid by every user of my uploaded information? They just run blind adds, capture what otherwise would have been my own buyers and then they want to sell those buyers back to me? That truly is messed up!
I agree that we should take ownership of our data. I don't agree that NAR is run by us. They are the tail wagging the dog. You are dead on about our industry was swiped from us. NAR doesn't speak for me as a broker and they don't listen when I speak either. I warned everyone years ago that giving our data away was a disaster. The differences between your view & mine are minor. NAR Should be protecting our data & listing agents should get paid for it according to how many clicks it gets.
I do not like Zillow at all. Yes, ban them.
NAR is acting again in the best interest of NAR. It's not even good enough to act in the best interest of Realtors, NAR also needs to act in the best interest of the consumer (aka the true market for our services). If anyone should be excluded from the NAR event, it should be NAR. Zillow is the least of our problems. You mentioned code of ethics that we are supposed to abide by, but who is actually enforcing them? We pay hundreds of dollars (if not thousands) to the associations and yet they don't even self police the agent community. Once the consumer decides that Realtors aren't relevant anymore we won't have a service to sell. Look at the reputation of our industry, the only group that ranks lower are used car sales reps. If we don't hold each other to a higher standard of service, we can't expect the consumer to respect us.
Not a fan of Zillow. They are not accurate and I agree with others that I am always trying to explain to both my sellers and buyers why this site is not accurate. I tell my clients to take the information with a grain of salt. Good site to see listings and interior pictures nothing beyond that.
Former appraiser here. So you're saying that there is a portal that charges (or takes) fees and comissions? I'm shocked, I must tell you. Shocked. 🙂 Can you say AMC?
Zillow is a damnation to the Real Estate business.Please don't be fooled into thinking that having someone market your property through another agent who has never seen the subject Real Estate and charges a huge portion of your unfound commission to let another Agent start to market it is a ggod thing youhave rocks in your head. Real Estate is specifically a local based marketplace. These guys have taken the job of being truthful about product information and generalized it to a level of flawed facts. At the expense of Realtors and the public. We pride ourselves on being salespeople who are professionals that supply and are responsible for the information we deceminate. With 35 years in this business I suggest you come in to it and work it for say three years. At the end let us see what your opinion is of the same people who killed the travel agent industry.
There is an awful lot of whining going on here. Zillow (or any other website) should be allowed to display “active” listings. Listing agents should be thrilled that their listings are displayed on Zillow and therefore bring in more potential buyers. Getting the house sold is your only job! I presume that the listing agents who are whining are doing so because they want to double-end the transaction, and Zillow basically makes this harder to do so.
Also, those agents who rely on Zillow for leads and are upset over their advertising pricing can just choose not to use Zillow. They are not forcing you to use them. I choose not to use them because I believe their system is rigged and statistically will not convert well enough to pay for itself.
Zillow is not the enemy here…NAR are the ones who are forcefully taking your money in the form of dues and not providing the appropriate benefit. They also charge you to be promoted on Realtor.com as I recall.
You guys are clueless. How many "zillowtors" are there? Those slimy sites have taken and misrepresented our correct info for years and when we call to ask for corrections are told by those thieves that only if we become "members" may we change their incorrect info. Talk about BS. The reason we have national standards guidelines and ethics is because NAR has taken a century to put them there and at the top of the list is honesty, which neither Zillow nor trulia have ever displayed. Also, there was research done last year that showed that since the list hub cut off those sites they have roughly only 60% of the true active listings AND roughly 30% of the listings had incorrect information to boot. So, for you two lender celebrities to say NAR is not acting in our interest your are 100% wrong. I would argue, that not only are they acting on our behalf they are fighting a slimy deceptive foe with dishonorable practices. As was stated earlier in this thread, they take our information, misrepresent it to the public and then want to charge us for the business it creates. I for one have boycotted both sites since their deceptive/misleading practices became apparent ( middle 2000's) and going on 18 years now I have been in the top 3% of all local agents period and I do not use either site. And finally in closing, NAR extended an olive branch in 2014 to both sites with the requirement being that both sites allow REALTOR's to be able to change any incorrect info without a charge to do it and both sites said no. Bet you did not know that!!!
It’s only a matter of time before Zillow automates the whole process of purchasing a home without the use of a Realtor or Loan Officer.
NAR MUST BE ZILLOW. EVERYBODY IS…AREN'T THEY? I saw one of our CB Agents with Zip Realty under CB, seriously. Maybe Zip does CB's marketing in some areas. It's like cellphones. They all piggyback on each other…except for when they don't.
I think everybody is everybody since NRT. I pay CB for what is tantamount to Zillow premier agency so my listing can affirm me as listing agent–what a concept. I have had my listings pirated over the years, so I have to pay or it's open season more than normal. Zillow and CB have agreements, thus Trulia being Zillow has agreements. I saw two Trulia sites–one that respects me as the agent, another that shows my competition with Zillow Premier agents, 3 at a time. Then I get Redfin, which markets my listing with another agent's face, contact AND rebate of commission! White flag. They're all in the same bed sharing the same bedbugs. It's atta control on every conceivable level.